Pet News Pet Travel

Hurricane Irene

Written by Rachel Phelps

Ok, I bet your thinking..huh….aren’t you from Kentucky? What does a Kentucky dog know about a hurricane? Well being the investigative reporter I am I saw the storm was coming so I bravely raced to the scene to give my readers the up close and personal account of what it is like to be in the storm. Ok not really, hehehe. I just happened to be in Washington DC for the BlogPaws conference and Irene just happened to decide to come to Blogpaws too!

The buzz was high among all the humans and even us dogs..what do we do? Do we stick it out and stay in Washington DC and risk being here extra days or do we leave early and get one of the last flights out Saturday morning and miss the rest of the conference? Lucky for me I delegated that decision to the rents. After alot of debate and phone calls they decided to stay. The hotel said they had generators, our flights weren’t until the end of the day on Sunday so the airport might open before then, and they didn’t want to be in a crazy full airport with me all day and stress me out. So being the good parents they are they decided to prepare the best they could. They arranged for a rental car (we took a shuttle from the airport when we arrived) so if we needed to drive more inland we could, contacted my Washington DC online westie friends so if we had to evacuate they could tell us where the pet friendly shelters where, went to the IAMS table and got extra samples of my food just in case, got puppy pads from another vendor(if the power went out I didn’t want to have to walk down 19 flights to go to the bathroom– my room was way up there) and finally got them a supply of bottled water and snacks to hold them over if needed.

As the storm approached Washington DC lucky for us it got weaker and weaker and I think it ended up being a category one as it passed by. Most of Saturday was windy and rainy (kinda like what we have in Kentucky sometimes) but Saturday night the winds picked up. I did go out in it once to do my business before it got too bad. Here is a video of me out in a hurricane. Boy it was windy!

So what is the most important thing I want to pass along to other dogs about hurricanes that I learned. — DON’T PEE INTO THE WIND…YOU END UP HAVING TO HAVE A BATH BECAUSE IT ENDS UP BACK ON YOU!!

But our flight wasn’t canceled and we never lost power so everything worked out in the end. So now I can take off been in a hurricane on my adventures list!

About the author

Rachel Phelps

Rachel Phelps, “America’s Pet Parent,” is an award-winning writer, photographer, and certified dog trainer. She keeps busy managing the career of her Internet celebrity dog Preston from Preston Speaks. Her three Westies — who think they are mini-humans — and three cats rule the house. To learn more about Rachel go to: Rachel Phelps Website

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